"… When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red. And in the morning, It will be foul weather to-day: for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?" The Holy Bible
"Many a so-called wise economist ... had not studied past history enough to know that after the greatest advance in history had culminated … the greatest panic in history must follow ... " W. D. Gann

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Is it a recovery yet? (Weekly report, 06-02-16)

A recovery would be indicated by weekly initial jobless claims holding below 500,000. ["'I think that we're hoping for the numbers to stay below 600,000, and not until we get below 500,000 can we be more certain that there is an economic recovery,' said Linda Duessel, market strategist at Federated Investors in Pittsburgh." (Reuters)]

IT'S A RECOVERY! (And it has been a recovery for every week since the Nov. 25, 2009 report, with the exception of the Aug. 19, 2010 report.)

"New claims in the period running from May 22 to May 28 dropped by 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 267,000, the Labor Department said Thursday." (Marketwatch)

The aim of this blog is to show (mostly from reports in mainstream respected news sources) that there is reason to believe that both the United States and the global economies remain fragile in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008 and that a number of threats exist today that could, if they worsened, bring about economic depression -- not just a minor depression, but a depression worse than the Great Depression. Key threats include excessive risk-taking by financial firms, unchecked by effective regulation; the continued existence of "too big to fail" institutions; and most especially, the amassing of levels of public and private debt which could become unsustainable.